Several major universities across South Korea including Korea University (KU) saw record levels of application withdrawals for the 2023 school year. According to admissions results released by KU, 580 out of 1887 accepted regular admissions students withdrew their application, resulting in a 30.8 percent final waitlist enrollment rate––a two-point increase from last year’s rate of 28.6 percent. The trend is spotted within Seoul National University (SNU) and Yonsei University (YU) as well, with one out of five prospective students rescinding their application, as reported by the Dong-a Ilbo. The rate of withdrawal was particularly noticeable among humanities and social science majors, with Business Administrations being one notable example with 58.5 percent waitlist acceptances.  

An official from the Jongro Academy has cited the new cross track application policy for college applicants to be the main cause of this phenomenon, reported the Korea Lecture News. They pointed out that many Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) track students have applied to humanities majors in schools that otherwise would require a much higher grade to be accepted in a STEM major. It is presumed that many of these students chose to enroll in other medical or science related departments, as date from the Jinhak Corporation shows that the percentage of cross-track applications for KU, SNU, and YU were over 51 percent. This new phenomenon is a noteworthy trend in the changing fields of higher education access in the foreseeable future.